Pearl
Well that was super boring. I think I'd liked it even less than X since my issue with X was just that it was a boring straight forward slasher. Pearl gets points for trying to do something more interesting, but I don't think he pulls it off that well and it's just a dull film. Like Ti West's usual slow burn works because the slow burn is the tension building and the dread until things pop off. But for most of this, it's not even a horror film and so it's just a slow burn mediocre drama that eventually pops off into horror and is sorta ok, but nothing interesting or special?
House of the Devil is my favorite indie horror flick of all time, but this is three films in a row from Ti West that I haven't enjoyed so I think I'm out at this point. Can't see myself watching MaXXXine. Not sure why these X films are getting such good reviews.
Only fun/interesting part in Pearl was the scarecrow scene.
Also these last few years, so many indie horror films have like 80%+ RT but most of them are pretty whatever. It's like the cool thing now for everyone to overrate indie horror films. Makes it tough finding the actual good ones worth watching. Malignant, The Night House, Antlers are the only ones I can think of that I'd recommend from the last two/three years. Maybe like 2/3rds of Barbarian. Still need to see Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Smile, Terrifier 2.
*edit* actually looking at the horror flicks I've seen in the past two years I'd also add in SlaXX and Psycho Goreman as good indie horror. Plus for non-indie (well Malignant probably doesn't count as indie), Nope was great.